Depleted uranium is less radioactive than common dirt. The article is nothing more than fear-mongering crap. C'mon, it quotes an undergraduate student's research paper written for a lower-division geology class as if it's a credible primary source. It also makes very bold statements, such as "ludicrously high leukemia rates" in connection with DU, that have absolutely no supporting evidence.

Sure, DU is a heavy metal, and, like lead, I don't prefer that it wind up in groundwater, but DU is much, much, MUCH less a threat than the media would like you to believe.

Staff: Mentor

loseyourname said:

I thought depleted uranium is lead. Isn't that what it degrades to?

Lead is the eventual product of radioactive decay. Depleted uranium is still uranium (U-238?). It has an extremely long half life, which means it is only slightly radioactive and therefore not a radiological threat.

There has been a study done on the effects of DU ammunition. The UNEP report concluded in 2001 and found that the hazards are minimal. The most significant hazard seems to be that someone will pick up a round and keep it in close proximity of their person for an extended period of time. Having spent some time on a naval carrier DU rounds were used for the 'seawhiz' automated defense system, and we were always warned not to touch the orange traingular sabots. Someone in Kosovo might not know if a round is radioactive or not. That is the only significant radioactive risk stated in the report.

There are many other sites that disagree and some claim that the tables in the UNEP report are being interpreted incorrectly, and the radioactive risks are being downplayed. Cases of cancer and leukemia are reported in soldiers and citizens that were in areas where DU rounds were used.

Oh goodie, more DU fearmongering. I love DU fearmongering. Its very entertaining. Uh, yeah, but we aren't going to be making pipes or silverware out of it...

Ha ha ha ! very funny.
When US military was spraying thousands of hectares of Vietnam with Agent Orange which contained Dioxines they also reasured soldies and later civilian population that there is absolutelly no health side effects( birth deformations,miscariages and so on)

Well ill be the first to say bring up facts showing DU is a serious health hazard and then you can be taken seriously instead of just going "ha, the US is always wrong because they lie so they must be wrong about this too"

Well ill save all the formalities and such and get to where id probably end up going with "Why would you believe hte Army if the people who cry about DU say the government is a bunch of liars and they shouldnt be trusted".

The 214Po is far, far more radioactive than the 238U with a half-life of a couple milliseconds; however, since an atom of 238U has to decay in order to produce an atom of 214Po, it's radioactivity is limited. 238U has a half-life of 4.5 Billion years. Since T1/2 of 238U is much, much greater than T1/2 of any of it's decay products, the amount of any daughter nuclide should be in equillibrium. In short, DU does *not* get more radioactive over time. I just wanted to make that point a little bit clearer.

The interesting thing about the DU 'debate' is that most of the people who have done scientific studies on the DU will say 'it's not particularly dangerous, but there are so many factors involved, we can't be 100% sure' while the anti-DU activists always seem to have absolute certainty about their data.

So what's the pattern here? One DU thread gets swept away along with the facts located therein only to be replaced by another "run and hide DU is com'n" thread. Argh!!! The last DU thread needs to be restored and stickied for all of the fearmongers to read through. Their 'facts' have been debunked before---I like the new tactic of using college papers as proof though---to exhaustion.